Practicing Architecture under the Bamboo Ceiling

Abstract

Iwahiko Tsumanuma (also known as Thomas S. Rockrise) was among the earliest immigrants from Japan to come to the United States to study architecture, and in the early twentieth century he established a successful practice, first in New York City and later in Asia. However, despite his training at Syracuse University in the conventional Beaux-Arts architectural vocabulary of the period, Tsumanuma found that the expectations of white patrons required that he design objects and spaces around Orientalist themes in the language of Japonisme. In Practicing Architecture under the Bamboo Ceiling: The Life and Work of Iwahiko Tsumanuma (Thomas S. Rockrise), 1878–1936, Gail Dubrow and collaborators Christina M. Rockrise, Alyssa Gregory, and Sarah Pawlicki make use of a previously unavailable archive of Tsumanuma's family papers to document the architect's life and career, presenting an in-depth case study of the multiple ways in which racism shaped the lives and experiences of Japanese immigrant architects in the United States in the early twentieth century. The methods used for this investigation, which included consulting family papers and collaborating with family descendants, provide a model for scholars seeking to better understand racism's formative role in shaping the history of the architectural profession.